The Warren Central boys’ basketball team took the phrase “defending your home court” to heart in Friday’s District 14 championship game against South Warren.

With the Spartans still within striking distance early in the second half, Warren Central used another championship level defensive stretch to take off and move on — pulling away for a 70-46 win over South Warren. The win allowed the Dragons to celebrate the program’s first District 14 title since 2023.

Warren Central coach William Unseld said his team has really bought in on the defensive way, a big reason why the Dragons sit at 23-3 heading into next week’s Region 4 Tournament.

“We are living with our defense right now,” Unseld said. “It’s been that way all year, really great defensively. It’s probably my best defensive team overall. We’ve got quickness. We’ve got length. We’ve got some physicality. Once we put some stops together and made some shots finally, we knew we were going to get some runs going.”

The defense was on point most of the night, but it wasn’t until a huge second-half run that Warren Central was able to secure the district crown.

Warren Central took nine shots in the first quarter, all from 3-point range, but was able to parlay that into a 12-10 lead. A 3 from Johan Pratt pulled South Warren (17-10) within 14-13 early in the second, before the Dragons went on a 12-2 run to make it a double-digit lead.

The Spartans hit a couple of 3s to get the deficit back into single digits, but Warren Central still held a 29-21 advantage at halftime.

“They did a really good job of packing it in,” Unseld said. “Sometimes you have to make a shot to loosen them up and that’s kind of what happened in that run. We loosened ‘em up, made some shots. We got wide-open shots and they finally went in.”

After a bucket by South Warren to open the second half, the teams traded 3s over the next few minutes with a 3 from Caden McIntyre trimming the margin to 35-29 with 3:52 left in the third quarter. The Warren Central defense took over from there.

Warren Central held the Spartans to one point the rest of the third with a 3 from Ryan Hulbert at the buzzer making the score 43-30. Hulbert’s 3 was part of a 15-0 run that pushed the lead to 55-30. The advantage grew to 62-33 before a three-point play by John Burch ended a more than eight minute field goal drought by the Spartans. South Warren was unable to get closer than 24 the rest of the way.

“We hang our hat on our defense,” Warren Central senior Jeremiah McCombs said. “Once we start locking up, the offense comes with it. If our defense picks up, I think we are one of the best teams in the state.”

McCombs led the Dragons with 16 points and six rebounds. KJ Johnson added 11 points and Dominique Anthony finished with 10 points.

“Honestly it all came into focus,” Johnson said. “We came into this game ready to play, confident. We knew what we had to do and at the end of the day we did it.”

Burch led South Warren with eight points.

Both teams advance to the region tournament, which begins Tuesday at E.A. Diddle Arena. After last year’s first-round upset to Barren County, Johnson said the Dragons come in with extra motivation this year.

“We lost in the first round,” Johnson said. “We will have to show up every single game and show them what is up.”

SWHS 10 11 9 16 — 46

WCHS 12 15 14 29 — 70

SW — Burch 8, McIntyre 7, Shively 6, Pratt 6, Willis 6, Decker 5, Perkins 3, Sisson 3, Lobb 2.

WC –– McCombs 16, Johnson 11, Anthony 10, Byrd 6, McDaniel 6, Bradford 6, Prince 5, Ry. Hulbert 3, Ra. Hulbert 3, Murrell 2, Duncan 2.